It is generally known that carbon steels have better mechanical properties for making razor blades than stainless steels. However due to their tendency to corrode, such carbon steel blades have relatively short-use lives. It is further known that their use-lives may be increased by applying chromium coatings to the edges. Generally the most efficient way to apply such chromium coatings is to stack the blades in a magazine and apply the chromium to the edges by processes such as sputtering or vapor deposition. Although such sputtering and vapor deposition processes can be effectively used on the edges they are inefficient and/or inconsistent when used on the bodies of the blades.
It is still further known from U.S. Pat. No. 3,490,314 that the bodies and edges of as-sharpened carbon steel blades can be made more corrosion resistant and longer lasting by coating them with nickel phosphorous, cobalt phosphorous or nickel-cobalt phosphorous coatings by electroless processes. Although such processes are especially effective on the bodies of the blades, there is one drawback with the edges, in that the coatings bead-up thereon causing rounding, and additional sharpening, subsequent to the coating process, is required.